Pages

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Pickled Feet 6 hour Run

I am quite happy with my run last night, even if it was brief. I was nervous about the shin acting up, so I taped heavily and took a few aspirin to dull it. I wanted to warm up on the run without any hitch in my stride, which could cause more damage if I was limpy. The aspirin worked to get me through the warm up pain-free...but I came to find out has some side effects.

Brandi and I drove down from McCall in the late morning, did a few errands in Boise and arrived at Eagle Island State Park. We set up our camping tent and I set up the SCOTT tent as I would be doing rep work for the event, while I was not running. We visited with friends and got ready to run.

I went out feeling great, a little too fast, as my watch was giving me bogus splits. After 20 miles or so, I noticed the pace was slipping to about 6:50 and I had pain in my lower intestines. A few speedy guys jumped in to pace me a bit with Ben Blessing doing one lap and Matt Tock giving me 3 good ones. As darkness fell, the pace dipped again to 7:20 ish and I began to stumble and trip over the rocks and uneven grassy terrain. It became clear that I would not be able to keep the pace up to hit 50+ miles in the dark. I had tried to bank enough miles in the daylight, but darkness fell quickly and it took a good bite from my speed, even with a headlamp and hand light. I hit the 10 lap/mile 25 mark in 2:50. Matt joined me for one last lap and the pace just fell apart as my guts were tied in knots.

My belly felt great, energy was great from Vespa and VFuel, but something was bad in the lower GI tract. I will spare you the details, but give you all a warning to be careful with aspirin. When I finished the 11th lap and 27.5 miles at around 3:10, I "discovered" I had lost a significant amount of blood! That was good enough for me. I pulled the plug right there and felt glad to get a great run in and spare myself the damage of 3 more hours of running. Brandi soldiered on a few more hours and bagged it at the 5 hour mark with 25 miles. We had a great time getting some sun and running on some dirt. It's going to be a long season, but this was a very promising start for both of us. I am walking around fine and planning a recovery workout for tonight and a good run tomorrow.

6 comments:

Thanks Geo. This week has been good because I was conservative. My muscles were destroyed after this thing, but I was 100% in 2 days! Most importantly, my energy (endocrine) bounced back immediately. I ran hard 22+ with 5000+' gain yesterday in the heat. Coming along.

So great to see you two. The only gel I used was the peach cobbler one I grabbed from your box. Thank you so much for that. A couple of observations. #1 The reaction of this gel is similar to honey IMO. Unlike regular gels/gu's, it quickly dilutes into less of a disgusting glob of guck and I am able to get it down. I was also having some issues early on with feeling depleted and my belly was feeling achy. The Vfuel gel I used made my belly feel like it had something of substance in it and even more importantly, it didn't run straight through me like all other gels. YAY!!! Thanks for the gel and it was really good to see you and Brandi. :)

Good to see you too Amy. How many miles did you get? Sorry, we had to leave early, but B had to get to work. FYI- I dissolved my VFuel in those little 8oz water flasks I was carrying. Each lap, I drank 6-8 oz and had my gel in the flask. The peach is awesome in the water!

84.5 total. After my little 2.5 hr nap I just did about a 50K. I was staying on the same pace until the last two laps. Dante came out and said he'd walk with me but didn't want to run since he was wearing his Vans (enter me rolling my eyes) and I decided I'd rather spend the time with him walking than get more mileage. Anyway, spent the last 45 min running around the .3 loop which is as bad as it sounds. All in all, I still placed 2nd female again (same as las year) and it was mainly because of attrition of the other girls. All in all, I'm ranking it in the superb category!

September 16-17, 2017. 100+ Miles through the high country of the Salmon River Mountains of McCall, Idaho. Rugged granite peaks and bottomless canyons with abundant wildlife characterize this stunning course. A true test of your mountain running skill. "The race you've been training for."